Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- BAFTA Games Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books to Get a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) – Yarn Spinner (2026)
- The History Of The Word “Metroidvania” And How It Spread – A Critical Hit (2025)
- Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment – Bloomberg (2025)
Most Recent: News
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition 1.8.2 update will be available tomorrow
Tomorrow… tomorrow… it’s only a day away! Microsoft has officially announced that the 1.8.2 update for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, the so-called “Adventure Update,” will be available tomorrow, October 16.
The 1.8.2 update will add Creative Mode, new mobs, the hunger mechanic (players must eat to maintain their health), new items to mine, new food stuff to eat, NPC villages, abandoned mineshafts, and much, much more. The complete list of changes and bug fixes is available in the patch notes.
The update will go live at 5 AM (Eastern Time), but may take up to 24 hours to propegate to all Xbox Live users.
Amazing Spider-Man coming to Wii U next Spring with all DLC
The Wii U can add another superhero to its roster of games next Spring. In addition to “launch window” titles like The Avengers: Battle For Earth, and Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man will be webslinging his way onto Nintendo’s new console in The Amazing Spider-Man.
As with the Dark Knight’s Nintendo outing, all of the DLC released for the game will come included in the Wii U version, including Spider-Man creator Stan Lee’s adventure, as well as the Rhino Challenge, Lizard Rampage and Oscorp Search and Destroy packs.
[Source: Joystiq]
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged The Amazing Spider-Man
CoD Elite goes free for all; CoD Black Ops II getting Season Pass
As the old saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch. So it was surprising that Activision, a company very much concerned with the bottom line, has announced that the Call of Duty Elite service for Call of Duty: Black Ops II will be free. FREE!
Essentially, the new service is retooling the already available free Elite service, to answer the growing concerns that players who had the Elite package and players who didn’t were unable to play together. As Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg stated, “What we have realized is that several of the Call of Duty Elite services which are currently only available to our premium members for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are things that would further unite, engage and delight our player community. So we are going to make them free for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”
These features include Player HQ stat tracking, Clan HQ, Zombies stat tracking, Call of Duty Elite TV, and Social Sharing and Notifications.
For this the company should be commended; they have effectively flattened the multiplayer field and granted everyone the same service with a purchase of the game, yet the new announcement is rather misleading. The main selling point of Elite was the free DLC packs Activision gave subscribers. With the new CoD Elite, DLC packs have become separate purchases again, priced at $15 each. Four packs will be released and CoD players can pre-purchase them as a Season Pass for $49.99, a savings of $10. Naturally, all DLC packs for CoD Black Ops II will be available on the Xbox 360 first with PC and PS3 players getting them later.
Activision also stated on their website that they are working with Nintendo on making the DLC and Season Pass available on the Wii U version of Call of Duty: Black Ops II as well.
Daily Scoop: October 15, 2012 – PokeyMans!
Welcome to yet another exciting week! I have deals, and funny websites, and t-shirts, and so much more for you! Well, ok, not really so much more. But I can tell you about my weekend! During this fabulous weekend, I successfully drank a Guinness without getting sick, beat Borderlands 2 (and started a new game as a Gunzerker), saw Looper, and finished the twelfth Dresden Files book. Whew. Oh, and watched the first episode of season three of The Walking Dead. I’ve been a busy lady!
Amazon is just having the same deals they had last week, except not as many of them. They’re still running deal for the Xbox 360 Entertainment Bundle – for $229, you get the Xbox 360 4GB console, an Xbox Live 3 month Gold Membership, the Xbox 360 media remote, a $10 Amazon Instant Video Credit, and 3 Xbox Live Arcade games. They’ve still also got the $30 credit offer when you purchase the Madden NFL 13 PlayStation Vita Wi-Fi Bundle. Best Buy is having an Xbox 360 bundle sale. You can get $50 off the 250GB Holiday Bundle, the 4GB Kinect Holiday Bundle, and the 250GB Kinect Holiday Bundle, each of which comes with different games. Scoop ’em up! Or at least, you know. One of them.
As for funny websites, check out this awesome Pokemon art project, in which webcomic creator Noelle Stevenson draws Pokemon as they are described to her. Stevenson, who doesn’t know the Pokemons, draws them from their descriptions, and hilarity ensues. Let me just put it this way: the line “wow it looks like Crash Bandicoot went through the stupid machine” had me in tears today.
And now, t-shirt time! (more…)
Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News
Full Dance Central 3 soundtrack unveiled ahead of tomorrow’s release
Dance Central 3 will be available in stores tomorrow and, to make sure you’re in the mood to boogie, Harmonix has released the game’s full soundtrack.
The complete list of songs is just incredible. I mean, you’ve got The Hustle… Ice Ice Baby… You’ve Got It (The Right Stuff)… Macarena… YMCA… just on and on. Someone at Harmonix definitely set the “embarrassing music to dance to” dial up to 11 for this one.
Hit the jump to view the complete tracklist. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360
Tagged Dance Central 3
Nintendo drops Wii price to $130
Just in time for the holidays (and the impending release of the Wii U), Nintendo has announced a price drop for the Wii along with a brand new bundle.
The Wii system will now be priced at $129.99 and it’ll come bundled with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. This new bundle will be available on October 28 and will replace last year’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii bundle.
“Nearly six years after it launched, people are still attracted to the pure, inclusive fun of the Wii console,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “A new suggested retail price and the inclusion of two great games make it an easy choice for families looking for a great value this holiday season.”
And then he muttered under his breath, “Because they sure as hell aren’t going to find a Wii U.” (That’s a joke.)
Posted in News, Wii
Tagged Wii Sports
Weekly Warp-Up: Kevin Butler Edition
No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…
I admit, I haven’t thought about “Kevin Butler” much since Sony stopped producing commercials featuring the multi-talented faux-executive. But his reappearance on TV, as a pitchman for a “Buy 4 Ties, Get a Wii” promotion no less, has caused the entire world to go topsy-turvy this week.
First, Sony slapped the actor behind “Kevin Butler,” Jerry Lambert, and Bridgestone, with a lawsuit. They contend that the tiremaker and the actor have committed trademark infringement in their use of a white-coated Lambert standing next to a Wii. But, as it always does when it comes to Sony, it gets weirder.
Bridgestone claims that “Kevin Butler” never appeared in their commercial, and they seem to have a pretty solid case as the actor never speaks during the commercial and is never addressed by name. Essentially, Sony is attempting to have trademark protection granted to Lambert’s face. Trademark protection that would presumably belong to them and not the actor who owns said face.
I don’t want to be one of those people who take pleasure in Sony’s tumble to third place, but their antics are much more amusing in the PS3/Vita era than they ever were during the high-flying days of the PSone and PS2.
There’s more news from the week that was after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
Several Xbox 360 bundles get an unofficial (and temporary) $50 price cut
Retailers, including GameStop, Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, have slashed the price of several different Xbox 360 configurations this morning by $50. No end date was listed for the new sale price of each package, but it’s likely to clear inventory before Microsoft reveals their Xbox 360 “Holiday Bundles” for 2012.
But if you’re in search of an Xbox 360 console today, the following bundles have been given the temporary snip snip and are now available for $249.99 instead of their regular price of $299.99:
- 4GB Kinect Bundle (which includes Kinect Adventures)
- 250GB Holiday 2011 Bundle (which includes Halo: Reach and Fable III)
- 250GB Holiday 2011 Matte Bundle (which includes Forza Motorsport 4 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)
- 250GB Holiday 2011 Racing Bundle (which includes Forza Motorsport 4 and a Wireless Racing Wheel)
And the following bundles have temporarily dropped from $399.99 to $349.99:
- 250GB Holiday 2011 Kinect Bundle (which includes Kinect Adventures and Carnival Games: Monkey See Monkey Do)
- 320GB Star Wars Bundle (which includes Kinect Star Wars and a special paint job)
- 320GB Halo Bundle (which includes Halo 4, two controllers, and a special paint job)